


Love that Withers and Grows

by poeticalscience



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poeticalscience/pseuds/poeticalscience
Summary: Hades never really wanted the boy to fail.Truthfully, he couldn't help but admire Orpheus, just a little.
Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown), Hades/Persephone (Hadestown)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	Love that Withers and Grows

Truthfully, Hades admired the boy. Naïve he may have been, but you couldn't fault his courage. After all, he'd come all the way to the underworld alone - a feat very few mortals had ever achieved.

And none with so... _noble_ a purpose. He couldn't be faulted for that, no matter how disruptive his arrival had been. That the boy's love was enough to sustain him through the long, dark journey underground was nothing if not admirable.

Foolish, perhaps, but admirable.

Truth be told, the king recognized himself in the boy. The foolishness, the determination to undertake a harrowing journey with only the love in his heart and the merest glimmer of hope for success... That was the kind of lovesick thing that Hades might have done for Persephone, once upon a time.

(The kind of thing he would _still_ do for her, not that he'd admit it. Would brave the Phlegethon and all the horrors of Tartarus for her, if necessary. If it would prove his love for her.)

So, the king couldn't help but admire the boy, just a little.

But there was something the king knew that the boy didn't, learned over the many long years of his life.

 _Love fades_.

It was a truth that Hades hadn't wanted to believe, that he had to _force_ himself to acknowledge. Although his own love still burned as brightly as ever, he knew it to be true. He'd seen it happen all around him, to gods and mortals alike. He saw it happening within his own marriage, no matter how hard he tried to hold on to his wife.

Love fades.

This is what he told his wife when she pleaded with him to release the girl. Letting her go wouldn't make a difference, he said, she'd already abandoned the boy once. It was only a matter of time until she left him again, no matter how strong their love seemed to be.

Love fades.

This is what he tried to tell the boy, tried to articulate through his anger at being undermined as king. She'll break your heart, that girl, he tried to say. It won't last.

He says, I was in love once. And my wife was in love with me. He says, look at all I've done, look at all I've built. Look at how she still leaves me, year after year. Alone in the dark.

He doesn't say: Look at how she breaks my heart.

Love fades. But what I have built here, what I have made, this is forever, he says. He challenges the boy to prove him wrong.

The boy does.

For a moment.

He proves the depths of his love for the girl. He proves that he can soften the heart of the King of the Underworld, who had thought his walls impenetrable. He proves that the queen still loves the king, buried under years of hurt and resentment and misunderstandings.

And so, the king lets the young lovers go. He lets them _try_. Selfishly, he asks them to prove themselves. To prove to him that love - his, and theirs - can overcome any challenge.

For the first time in an age, he believes it can.

For the first time in an age, he tastes hope.

But then...

The boy fails.

The girl falls.

Hope turns to ashes on his tongue.

* * *

He escorts his wife to the train.

Everything has changed, and nothing has. Still, Spring must come. Still, Persephone must leave.

It's quiet in the train-car, the king and queen both lost in thought.

Finally, she breaks the silence.

"What you said," the queen says softly, looking at her husband with sad eyes. "Love fades. Do you really believe that?"

"Don't want to," the king replies, just as quietly. "Do you?"

He holds his breath, watching her intently as he awaits her response.

"Don't want to," she echoes him.

Filled with relief, he offers her a tentative smile.

He wants to ask her if that means she still loves him, wants to ask if she believes they can try again. Wants to ask her a million things that have sat, unspoken, on his tongue as they've grown apart over the years.

He doesn't.

Maybe he's still afraid to hear the answer. Maybe what they've already said is answer enough.

Instead, he takes her hand. Holds it in his own for the rest of the journey. He raise it to his lips before she steps off the train, kissing her knuckles.

He doesn't say _I love you._ He says, "I'll see you in the fall." And maybe that's the same thing, after a fashion.

In response, she gives him a smile brighter than the sun. It warms his heart as the train pulls away from the station, beginning the long journey below.

For the second time this year, he tastes hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to write something more substantial - ended up with short and introspective instead. Oh, well.


End file.
